Modding Discussion Team Pioneer; the future of Starbound!

Discussion in 'Starbound Modding' started by RamsiC, Dec 30, 2013.

  1. RamsiC

    RamsiC Pangalactic Porcupine

    Hello there everyone! This post is just a snowball post to see the kind of support a project like this can get. My name is Ramsi and I am here today to talk about Team Pioneer. Team Pioneer is a concept built around the idea of "what if we made the modding community more readily accessible to those in need." Not that Chucklefish hasn't done a marvelous job already, this is merely a means of offering readily available help and assets to people who are working on mods or want to work on mods. Let me go ahead and copy/paste the excerpt from my conversation advertisement as it's only fair that everyone gets to see what the group is advertised as to some of the private invites!

    Thanks to the overwhelming support of this project I am pleased to announce that Team Pioneer now boasts a team of 42 coders, artists, and pixel artists! Thanks guys! :D

    Excerpt:

    My name is Ramsi and I am the coordinator of this project. I supply the means of expanding the growth of any project the team does and on behalf of my benefacting friends at Obelisk Gaming, a small clan I moderate and manage, am able to offer the users of this project an incredibly secure TeamSpeak, private forums, and a myriad batch of tools and resources that may assist you in anything you may wish to do in regards to Starbound or even other games! If you need anything personally than please do not hesitate to ask!

    I am available for contact on this forum or on Steam under the name of ramsichaotix.
    You may be asking what the point of this project is and well it's quite simple. At the present time this is merely a rally cry to draw in a good batch of coders, artists, sketch artists, etc so that we may make a modding collective. As you may be aware already we currently are working on mods for a game that to this day only came out a few weeks ago (feels like ages!) and as such everyone is actually quite scattered and displaced. Kudos to the readers of this message and you effectively are already forming the backbone of the modding community and that is quite the huge deal in a game like this with a dev team that loves to play nice!

    At the moment the small group is pow-wowing some ideas in regards to making a grand mech mod for the game that, with any luck, may be picked up by Chucklefish should it entertain them enough and wow enough players. The goal of this subproject is still a bit hazy as the group was recently formed; but more details should be available with time!

    A few notices:
    1. This group will never force you to stop what you are doing EVER. Your goals are your own and we will always respect that; the group is mainly formed around the idea of being a constantly growing source of creation in a world that gives us the means to create. You may be asked if you'd like to help, otherwise welcome to a community that expects nothing of you!
    2. We're all adults here so don't hesitate to be a little rambunctious, just try not to step on any toes please!
    3. We reserve the right to donating any projects to Chucklefish should they ask as long as the majority of the project workers okay it! Tiy has been incredibly nice about this process in the past and being in a modding community it is a high honor to have your work added officially to a game! :D
    4. While Teamspeak isn't a must... it will increase the ability to communicate and function better in projects. Multiple channels will be offered and should private channels be requested for certain projects they will gladly be given to you! Please try to join Teamspeak despite any hatred/fear/dislike of yourself you may have that would stop you from joining the VoiP!
    5. Have fun: It's honestly the only thing I care about. This isn't a job, it's essentially just a giant batch of good people who may have some serious fun working together or giving each other grief while they work. Nothing is wrong with some fun!
    I've also been informed that funding may apply to certain projects. Yes, this means money, moolah, dosh, etc. If you would like to learn more please play this video while you read under the line provided; thank you!

    _________________________________________________________________

    Obelisk Gaming is a somewhat newer clan built up by a gamer under the alias of MassDivide. Mass is a game developer at heart who understands the plight of being creative but never seeing anything for it and as such he tends to be a tad loose with his money for those willing to help him out with either games he is making or for anything that he requests for servers he may be making. Understand that by joining this group YOU ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO HELP HIM OR DO ANYTHING IN REGARDS TO OBELISK GAMING this is merely a small thing where he may join a channel with a goal or requesting help for a game he may be working on and people may opt in to help.
    _________________________________________________________________

    So who do we currently have in the group? To date we have myself, Ramsi, who only functions as the coordinator. I'll be the one doing what some may consider the "grunt/bitch" work of doing anything public relations, settling incidents, keeping up with notes, conceptual systems, or trans-communicating between different members of the group! You can think of me as a secretary of sorts to keep you up to date or just help out with smaller things where needed. I am incapable of coding and art was never my thing, but I'll admit I was blessed with the gift of a silver tongue when needed!

    In the art department we currently have Breakfast Lad who has actually frontpaged the subreddit twice in one day with his pixel work. The first being his "Scout" concept:
    [​IMG]
    and his Avian "Hummingbird" I believe he called it:
    [​IMG]

    The new Miniknog Mega Mech:
    [​IMG]
    His forum page is located at:
    http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?members/breakfast-lad.160317/ and his portfolio can be found at: http://www.zacharyziessler.wix.com/portfolio

    In the coding department we have Skizot who may be recognized at the moment for his amazing Mechs, most recently the bulldozer!
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG] this one is actually for the upcoming SS13 mod!


    These neat pictures come from Ruffz who is working on the Attack on Titan mod:
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    We recently had CaptainKobold join up with his amazing race of Kobolds!
    [​IMG]

    And for the moment (due to files I have onhand) we have PenguinToast and his Magnetbound mod:
    [​IMG]



    Let the record show that this group DOES NOT WORK BASED ON DEADLINES under most circumstances.
    In the batch of modders who have already joined the team we have Toros who can be found here: http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?members/dr-toros.10538/ and is currently working on a "combat mech" pvp system with different variants of mech.

    We also have Carty1234 at: http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?members/carty1234.101780/ who is currently working on a more specialized way of creating mechs in game.

    An announcement will be posted on the subreddit that this group is being formed and with any luck I suppose the ballpark figure for how many people may join can be anywhere from 15-50. Some may say this number is a tad high, and honestly it's not. Our Teamspeak is also capable of holding 400+ people and has an already daily population of about 20 on a good day so we have plenty of space. This group also isn't only locked to Starbound! Play what you want friends, you may share some great interests or pick up some by playing with a bunch of strange coders/scripters/artists!

    Okay that is about all I can think of, it's presently 0320 for me and my mind is a bit fried. In about three to four hours I will be posted an announcement on the subreddit for Starbound and the modding subreddit under the name of RMuldoun. This Reddit account is shared by about ten to fifteen people so do not panic if you don't get an immediate response should you PM it, we only respond to our our specialized messages!

    Thank you, and it's a pleasure to at least know you gave this a thought :) Please PM me if you have any personal questions and anyone who accepts this offer I will PM you the Teamspeak information!
    ---------------------

    And that would be pretty much EVERYTHING that the privately invited batch of people got! The first concern that was brought up was the part mentioning "We reserve the right to donating any projects to Chucklefish should they ask as long as the majority of the project workers okay it! Tiy has been incredibly nice about this process in the past and being in a modding community it is a high honor to have your work added officially to a game! :D"

    What this is is pretty much nothing more than a safety net to prevent content griefing! We've all been there; last day of being able to work on your BIG SCIENCE PROJECT OF SCIENCE for school and some lazy student walks up and says "yeah hi I'm part of the group now and will break this if you don't put my name on it." Some would go to a teacher, others would raise a ruckus, some would just accept it. Well, we base the allowance system off of contribution! If Tiy/Chucklefish as a whole, would like to use a mod being worked on by a group inside Team Pioneer and four out of the five contributors give the okay, well for the sake of sanity that project would be greenlit. This isn't a system in place to abuse trust or anything of the like, it's merely in place to prevent mods from moving on to be Vanilla content because there may be some internal slapfighting. If you work on a mod solely or start a project and do all the work of caretaking your project than you may situate all of that and how credit/greenlighting gets thrown around if you get a message from Big-T. If it's a group effort and you're being a jerk, well majority rules at that point.

    ^^^^^^^^
    This tool will not be abused/used and will only be played in case of emergency!
    ---------------------

    Comments and criticism are welcome! Hoping this was posted in an okay place as it didn't really fit in with any other subforum..
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2014
  2. donpapillon

    donpapillon Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Is this the right place to ask if I can join?
    If it isn't I can move it through the proper channel, but either way, here's what I have to offer.

    I'm a senior design student, with some experience in game design, but nothing fancy (worked on a game, making sprites), and ample experience in several areas of graphic design and illustration.

    Here's some of my stuff:

    Mixed process, heavily digital.

    http://i.imgur.com/bi5yNrI.jpg

    http://i.imgur.com/KwYFaAP.jpg

    Pure pencil

    http://i.imgur.com/hX6naPd.jpg

    Pixel art

    http://i.imgur.com/7qvknCI.jpg

    http://i.imgur.com/wxVqOGb.gif

    http://i.imgur.com/BwByHZQ.jpg

    Markers

    http://i.imgur.com/dWwj4mK.png

    http://i.imgur.com/Gfh2zyA.jpg

    Pure digital

    http://i.imgur.com/BE91miV.jpg

    http://i.imgur.com/A9UcFxL.jpg

    Character concepts

    http://i.imgur.com/M4gxFFm.jpg

    http://i.imgur.com/Wr4VCl7.jpg

    http://i.imgur.com/LljTgX0.jpg


    My intentions or interest is helping as much as I can with what I can do. I dabbled in modding this game several times, altered my entire game, but never released anything. The best mod I did was turning the bubble boost into a rocket booster, with sound and everything, but I couldn't make a new tech nor release the mod so far. I lack that kind of knowledge. So here I am, trying to work with people who do, so that I can do my thing and they do theirs and we reach higher together then we ever could by ourselves.

    My disclaimer is that I'm on vacations and available now, but when that's over I'll probably have very little availability. I'm extremely dedicated to collage stuff, from normal workload to extracurricular research initiatives. Though what you said made me feel like that won't be much of a problem, you made very clear that this group would understand this kind of stuff and wouldn't ask for what I can't give.
     
    Gabrielfodsz and RamsiC like this.
  3. RamsiC

    RamsiC Pangalactic Porcupine

    We're currently accepting anyone and everyone and just wow the beauty of your art... WELP, I'M SPEECHLESS! Poke me in a PM for the TS info and what not friend, glad to have ya!
     
  4. SBRoxas

    SBRoxas Space Hobo

    I cannot code to save my life. Not yet anyway >_> But I can sprite / animate. I'll have to dig out some examples, but I would love to be able to get back into it. I'll edit once I find my stuff.
     
    RamsiC likes this.
  5. Raslin

    Raslin Poptop Tamer

    How do you feel about scripters? I don't know lua, but manage to edit files without much difficulty.
     
    RamsiC likes this.
  6. RamsiC

    RamsiC Pangalactic Porcupine

    More the merrier Raslin! PM me and add me on Steam!
     
    Raslin likes this.
  7. metadept

    metadept Mostly Harmless Codesman

    You guys should really come hang out on ##starbound-modding on freenode IRC. This basically describes the community we've been building for weeks: a place to share ideas, find collaborators, and ask for advice/help. If you think a separate collective is necessary then go for it, but it would be good to keep communication active rather than forcibly fragmenting the mod scene.
     
    severedskullz and SuperMandrew like this.
  8. RamsiC

    RamsiC Pangalactic Porcupine


    I'm a bit slow when it comes to IRC, how do I join the channel?
     
  9. metadept

    metadept Mostly Harmless Codesman

  10. Ulluses

    Ulluses Starship Captain

    Hey I'm super interested to join. Spoke to you a little on steam.

    I'm currently working on a tech mod for the avian crystal harmonic technology that's in the game at the moment. So far it's just a weapons pack as I get used to the hierarchies and libraries and stuff for the code but learning fast and all that.

    Here's a link to what I've done so far: link
     
    RamsiC likes this.
  11. choobski

    choobski Astral Cartographer

    Just posting to add this to my threads. Will probably inquire about joining when I have some spare time.
     
    RamsiC likes this.
  12. aMannus

    aMannus Space Kumquat

    What Metadept said. The IRC provides pretty much exactly the same kind of environment as this, except it doesn't require registration or any other wall. Personally, I don't see the need to wall off information for others through a registration or anything else. The more open it is, the more people can enjoy the information being found.
     
  13. RamsiC

    RamsiC Pangalactic Porcupine

    That's fair Mannus though if the modding irc is interested we are supplying a Teamspeak out of ease if you guys are interested. We're already about 10 members strong and if you guys want to join in by all means. We aren't hoarding information or anything, just a readily available think tank of sorts with members who can easily help others and easy to make modding teams on the fly.
     
  14. debugman18

    debugman18 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I'm interested in this. I don't have much of a portfolio, since this is only the second game I've ever modded. I have a couple of Don't Starve mods (LUA) and worked on a collaboration (Up and Away) with some other modders for it. I've got a couple of really tiny mods for Starbound so far, but I plan on making larger ones, once I get used to Starbound modding. I could do some art, but mainly I'd be coding.
     
    RamsiC likes this.
  15. RamsiC

    RamsiC Pangalactic Porcupine

    Welcome to the team! Add me on Steam :D
     
  16. aMannus

    aMannus Space Kumquat

    A teamspeak is nice to have, but even that can be centralized and advertised on the IRC. You would still be segregating the community if you 'just' provide a teamspeak. I've been setting up a teamspeak for everyone to join and advertised it on the IRC as well. I'm happy to join any other TS instead, but it would be nice to have all of this in one place so everyone is free to join whenever they want.

    What I want to say is, I don't see how making the community split even more is helpful. We have the reddit community and the official starbound forum community already, I'd much rather look for a way to combine these two instead of adding a third community.
     
  17. RamsiC

    RamsiC Pangalactic Porcupine

    God speed patching up the official and the Reddit.. got your work cut out for you I'm afraid. This is only an advertisement for those interested if anything; it will remain public as can be it's just we're focusing right now on getting stuff settled. How many people use the IRC?
     
  18. aMannus

    aMannus Space Kumquat

    If you would join the IRC, you would realise how many people already go there for pretty much the exact same reasons. Discussing mods and helping each other out with problems they come across. I won't stop you for doing anything like this, but another option would simply be to advertise the IRC more on both reddit and the forums here. It would be doing exactly the same as you're trying here, except you're centralizing modders instead of segregating them.
     
    RamsiC likes this.
  19. debugman18

    debugman18 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I don't think this segregates them. If anything, it can allow better organization between a smaller group of modders, who may not work as well in a larger group, such as the forums or IRC as a whole. Personally, I like the idea of a group of people who are dedicated to modding, since there is really no way to know who is on the IRC when, and there is no list of people there. The odds of running across somebody who is open to a collaborative mod on the IRC is less likely because of that. This way, it's easy to see who is interested, and engaging in a discussion with them doesn't require you to accidentally stumble across them on IRC.
     
    Rukrio and RamsiC like this.
  20. Duck77

    Duck77 Void-Bound Voyager

    Hey RamsiC so far anything I've changed in the game was just in the assets no lua scripting although I'd like to learn. Otherwise I'm pretty good at pixel art, and would love to join this team
     
    RamsiC likes this.

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